Service quality has become almost as important to many customers as the quality of supplied goods. More and more, customers tend to make purchasing decisions based upon service performance of suppliers. Thus, it has become very important for suppliers to evaluate their own service performance and to provide the results of such evaluations to customers. Suppliers and their customers often cooperate to evaluate service performance.
On-time product delivery is an important service component of many high-volume supply businesses. A customer typically orders a product for delivery on a specified date. The customer expects that the delivery will be no later than that date. However, the customer also does not want the delivery to be too early. The customer considers the delivery to be on time only if it is within an on-time window.
Each customer typically uses its own criteria to calculate the on-time window. For instance, one customer might consider a delivery to be on time if it is no earlier than five days and no later than one day from the requested delivery date. Another customer might consider a delivery to be on time if it is no earlier than four days and no later than the requested delivery date. The fact that each customer uses its own criteria makes it difficult for a supplier to evaluate its own performance. In fact, there are several other variable criteria which make the task of evaluation even more difficult for the supplier.
For instance, different customers use different performance measurement species or calculation units in calculating delivery performance. One customer might use dollar amounts as the measurement species. In such a case, an on-time evaluation would compare the dollar value of on-time items with the dollar value of items which were not on time. Another customer might use product units as a measurement basis. The on-time evaluation would indicate the number of product units delivered on time compared to the number of product units delivered too early or late. A third customer might use order line items or discrete shipments as a statistical calculation basis. The on-time evaluation would indicate the number of on-time shipments compared to the number of other shipments. Variations or averages based on the above schemes might also be used. Furthermore, some customers allow partial on-time credit for partial shipments, while other customers consider a particular order to be late if any part of the order is delivered late.
As another example of varying customer evaluation criteria, some customers equate a "delivery date" with an actual ship date. When such customers request a particular delivery date, they are referring to the day the shipment leaves the supplier's dock. Other customers equate the "delivery date" with the dock date-the date the shipment actually arrives at the customer's dock.
As a further specific example, certain companies might include weekends and holidays in their early and late calculations, while other companies exclude weekends and holidays. Other variable on-time evaluation criteria, not discussed, can of course be used by individual companies.
The highly variable nature of the criteria used to evaluate supplier performance and to compile on-time delivery statistics makes it very difficult for a supplier to either perform to the customers' varying expectations or to even evaluate whether performance expectations are being met. The invention described below addresses this problem. The invention helps a supplier set targeted delivery dates and goals within each customer's expectations, while also providing a statistical analysis of on-time deliveries in accordance with each customer's own evaluation preferences.